AMD Hires Away Key Intel Developer

By Ed Oswald | Published March 29, 2006, 9:22 PM

Press reports indicate that AMD has hired away one of the leading designers of the Itanium processor, along with eight of his colleagues, from competitor Intel. Samuel Naffziger had only been with the company for less than a year, having been hired away previously from Hewlett Packard in 2005.

AMD confirmed the move Wednesday and said Naffziger would work on chip design as a senior fellow. However, the company would not elaborate on the work he or his counterparts would be doing. While Intel has downplayed the loss, Naffziger played a key part in several chip launches, including the McKinley and Montecito processors.

According to Real World Technologies, Naffziger joined AMD in either late February or early March and would assist AMD in opening a design center in Fort Collins. The small Colorado city is also where Intel does much of its Itanium design work.

It is likely that the work Naffziger will be tasked with has something to do with two new multi-core processors, one for mobile products and another for servers. The Fort Collins office will initially employ 30 individuals, however that number could be expanded to 200 if there is enough interest, the site reports.

The site also speculated that much of the work in Fort Collins would concentrate on server chips, as most of the engineers in the area have worked on either the PA-RISC or Itanium chips.

Comments

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I don't see what this has to say about Intel or AMD one way or the other. This guy left HP for Intel and now he's left Intel for AMD, presumably for higher pay & better working arrangements.

Maybe he's smart, maybe he's in too much of a hurry to get ahead. Who knows?

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Could Intel be the next Enron?

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... Say what? Care to explain your "reasoning?"

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I feel that with all the latest heat on Intel for the less than honest things they have been trying to pull, which include sabatoging code to benefit them and harm AMD, that they have any room to complain. At least with an ex Intel employee they will know all the areas they have been sabatoged.

Brian Aldridge
Boise Computer Service, Inc.
http://www.BoiseComputerService.com
http://www.BoiseComputerService.net

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Hmmm...interesting. Perhaps you are correct, this may be, if nothing else, fuel to the lawsuit against Intel. Can't wait to see how this turns out!

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I think Intel should SUE!!

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I'm surprised that they're not already... You know, like over a non-compete employment clause that he must have had signed with Intel.

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Perhaps Intel values its reputation now, more than MS? :P

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I think they should too. After all, that's what all failing wannabes do. just ask Apple.

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I dont understand the hype since somebody working with the company for less than year making any dent for the organization.

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good attempt! i still remember the AMD business boosted few years ago when AMD buy NextGen. And AMD employed the experties from Digital Alpha which concerntrate on Alpha EV6 architecture, which laid down the artitecture for AMD hyper-transport architecture! I have been using AMD for couple of year! I never say "YES" to INTEL INSIDE! Good Job, AMD!

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